How to eat cheap and healthy while travelling

In this blog post I want to show you what I eat while I travel New Zealand. You will probably be able to buy all this food everywhere in the world.

Please note, that I am a vegetarian, you won’t find any tips on how to cook a good steak here…

When you travel in New Zealand I can advice you to go to the supermarkets “PAK‘ n SAVE“ or “Countdown“, the supermarkets “Four Square“ and “New World“ are usually more expensive. If you like shopping you will most likely prefer the Countdown supermarkets, PAK’n SAVE isn’t to well sorted.

In the last months I have only spent about 13-15 NZD for food per day. Usually the tap water is drinkable, so you won’t have to spent money for water.

Still included in the 14 bucks per day I was even able to buy the odd bit of pizza or chocolate. And drink a beer or coffee sometimes.

When you try to save money and eat very cheap you will notice, that you won’t eat very healthy any more. Even though the most kg prices of the fresh vegetables might seem expensive, they are not. If you just buy some different vegetables and pasta that will be enough for 3 meals and will only cost you about 12 NZD.

While I travel I try to eat some fruit and vegetables every day.

Breakfast:

For breakfast I usually eat cereals with milk and fruits. I prefer to mix my cereals with bananas or apples. Recently I swapped normal cow milk for coconut milk. (I still think that I prefer soy milk though…) It’s definitely worth to think about reducing your cow milk income, read why → http://saveourbones.com/osteoporosis-milk-myth/

Lunch:

For my lunch I tend to eat a bit more unhealthy, usually I eat minute soups, minute noodles or bakery products. That’s because I don’t have much time to cook properly twice a day (and maybe because I am a bit lazy).

Dinner:

For Dinner I prefer to cook pasta with different kinds of vegetables. If you like you can swap the pasta for rice, bulgur, potatoes or whatever you like.

When you buy vegetables try to buy many different colours and “eat the whole rainbow”. Vegetables and Fruit get their colour because of different minerals and vitamins, by picking as many different colours you can easily ensure that you get all your important nutrients.

To give it a bit more diversity I like to add walnuts or cashew nuts, that will add some proteins as well.

Most of the time I just fry the vegetables and nuts in a pan and add the cooked pasta afterwards.

These vegetables don’t take long to fry them and are cheap too: carrots, beetroot,green beans, onions, spring onions, zucchinis, paprika, tomatoes, asparagus

I carry salt, pepper and oil with me, in most hostels you will find free pepper and salt but you will only find free oil in some hostels. If you like to travel with more herbs or spices do as you like, but have in mind that you have to carry it all.

The cooked meal could loock like this:

Snacks:

When you go for a hike or a day trip you should pack some snacks, I prefer to get some fruit, buns or muesli bars.

These tips work very well for me, it might be different for you, but at least you have now got an idea on how you could eat while you are travelling. It is definitely not very hard to eat cheap and healthy at the same time.